


Keep Me Steady

by HK44



Series: Prompts: 2018 Edition [2]
Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: Angst and Feels, Fluff, M/M, Strength, Trans!Keith, Tumblr Prompt, hunk ship week, warmth
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-07-08
Updated: 2018-07-08
Packaged: 2019-06-07 06:33:50
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,481
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15213278
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/HK44/pseuds/HK44
Summary: Hunk is warmth in the coldness of worry. Hunk is strength when all things seem failing. Keith can't help but go to him for comfort, even when he knows he shouldn't.(For HunkShipWeek 2018)





	Keep Me Steady

Keith shivered. The dark stretch of his room huddled around him like a coffin. So much space and yet so constricting. His tongue felt dead in his mouth. He couldn’t articulate anything, couldn’t hiss how his body trembled invisibly and how he felt sick walking back to his room alone.

Shiro’s eyes had asked a thousand questions and Keith had responded with faked happiness, impostered content. In his chest curled agony and despair. He didn’t want to cause Shiro more trouble, more stress. Make the lines in his face deepen and the tension to his back worsen.

It made him ill to think of Shiro taking on more responsibility because of his own internal troubles.

He was stuck and trapped but not hurting, not injured. He could deal with this alone.

He just didn’t want to.

Rolling out of his bed, he stood with shaky knees. His covers removed, the chill of the castle’s air broke over his skin. When he had no one, he had Shiro.

And when he didn’t have Shiro, he had nothing.

Until now.

Hunk’s bedroom was barely a hallway away but walking there seemed to take forever. He tried to quicken his pace but his body felt so weighed down, like someone was filling him with lead. By the time he made it, anxiety was a forefront of his mind, telling him to go away, Hunk couldn’t help him, didn’t want to help him.

Only one person had ever wanted to help him.

Hunk was not him.

Keith knocked anyway, silencing the thoughts that plagued his head. He just wanted to sleep and Hunk was amazing at helping them get rest. He stirred up magic liquids that tasted sweet and left Keith feeling woozy and calm. He spread his hands, large and thick, over their backs and rubbed them slow and steady until they were eased with the weight of his body and the pressure he applied.

Always eager to help.

But the more Keith asked from him, the worse he felt. Too much. He was taking too many things he didn’t deserve. And Hunk- holy hell was he perfect, always willing to give.

Keith shivered as Hunk’s door slid open. He was shirtless. The bandage around his arm was gone but the scar where he’d been wounded, cut down trying to protect Keith, was still fresh and pink, still healing.

A sick feeling curled inside Keith’s chest.

He just wanted to give back to Hunk like Hunk was always giving him and yet-

_ A sword swinging down at his face, the angry face of the alien who couldn’t see but sensed the Galra in him and was terrified. Hunk shouting, pushing Keith out of the way. _

_ The blood. Spilling, pouring, copious. _

_ And Hunk’s eyes, normally bright or focused, turned pained, his voice a failing gasp. _

-he couldn’t.

“I-” Keith cut his eyes away from Hunk. “I-” The words failed in his mouth. He couldn’t make his thoughts lineup. They fell between apologies Hunk would brush off and a quiet request for comfort Keith didn’t deserve.

“Keith?” Hunk said, his voice soft. “Is everything okay?”

“I couldn’t sleep,” Keith said finally, breaking out of his shell.

It wasn’t his fault. It wasn’t his fault. Hunk had said it so much, more than the others. It wasn’t his fault. 

“You want something to drink?” Hunk asked, leaning off the doorway, looking brighter. Shy, Keith nodded slow. Hunk smiled and held out his hand. “Come on,” he said.

Keith took Hunk’s hand and leaned into him. “I’m sorry,” he said because he didn’t know what else to say as they walked in silence to the kitchen.

Hunk let out a weary sigh. “It wasn’t your fault,” he grumbled. “Stop apologizing.”

“Okay,” Keith said. 

“Why do I get the feeling that you’re lying when you say that,” Hunk sighed, his words not a question but fact.

Keith would always apologize, even if he couldn’t frame it into words. He tried to run his thumb, soothing, over Hunk’s palm but Hunk remained unphased and he stopped, embarrassed as Hunk shot him a confused gaze.

Hunk asked no questions of him but let go and walked in through the kitchen, rummaging through the fridge while Keith settled at the countertop, waiting patient. He watched as Hunk hunkered over, the clear line of his back exposed. His belly jiggled as he stood back up, arms full. Keith bit back a smile.

For all that he was strong, he was soft too.

Lovingly soft.

Did Keith even deserve soft?

Hunk pulled out the makeshift blender he’d crafted out of scrap metal and kitchen supplies he couldn’t figure out how to use, dumping and splashing liquids and foods into it. He placed the lid on top and tapped the button on the side. His arms layered on top of each other, keeping the lid down as the stuff inside swirled, churning and mashing together in a quiet hum. Hunk rest his chin on top of his wrist and eyed Keith.

“How come you couldn’t sleep?”

Keith gave a half-hearted shrug and fiddled with his fingers. “Everything feels loud,” he said after a stretch of silence peeled between them.

Hunk nodded. “Yeah, I get you. Sometimes quiet isn’t always quiet.”

Low, Keith smiled, ducking his head. Hunk poured the mix up into a cup and slid it Keith’s way before grinning low and pouring his own cup. He swung his leg over the stool beside Keith and settled down, calm and easy. 

For all that he had started out a source of panic, motion sickness and occasional engineering sarcasm, Hunk was a rather greater comforter. There was something so simple about his presence that most aliens were soothed by his words, no matter how frantic the situation. Trust held circular in Hunk’s form.

How well he could’ve been using that to trick people, if he wasn’t so nice.

No wonder Coran was training him for diplomacy.

Keith swirled his finger in the froth that filled the top of the mug. It clung to his skin, sticky. “How goes Coran’s training?”

Hunk shrugged and smiled, soft and low. “It’s going.” He slurped at his mug, froth dusting his upper lip like a weak mustache on adolescent boys. “Why?”

Frowning, Keith leaned over and wiped the froth away with his thumb. He sat back, shrugged. “Just curious.”

A part of him twisted, upset Hunk was confused that Keith was asking. Of course, he’d want to know how his boyfriend’s special duties were going.

Why wouldn’t he?

_ “Hunk, will you-” _

_ “Yeah. Anything you need, babe.” _

Keith wilted at the memories, so frequent and recurring.

He didn’t want their relationship to just be about him. He barely liked it when Shiro used to solely focus on him at time. And yet that’s how it felt. How easily he’d been swept away in the warm comfort of Hunk’s easygoing smile and willingness to help, he’d just forgotten how much he disliked it when people showed him too much attention.

Come to him for help a thousand times, seeking love and a gentle grip, and everytime Hunk handed it over and Keith gave nothing back.

Why didn’t he give back?

“Keith?” Hunk tested, running his hand over Keith’s back. The motion was soothing, warm, flat and heavy. Grounding.

Keith shook his head. He’d woken Hunk up because of his stupid fears, he’d gotten him to make him a drink to soothe his worries and here he was, still taking. He shifted away until Hunk’s head drifted from his back and fell loose at his side.

“I’m fine.” He chugged the rest of his drink and dropped the cup back to the counter. Oh, he should not have done that. “Let’s- we should go back to bed.”

Hunk faltered. “Oh,” he said faint. “Okay. Let me just-”

He grabbed Keith’s cup and slipped over to the sink. He drank the rest of his in one easy go then washed up. Keith’s insides churned, angry.

Why didn’t he offer to do that? Why didn’t he  _ think _ ?

Hunk laid out the cups to dry while Keith fidgeted in the doorway, not wanting to disappear, not sure what to do. He felt stuck. It was amazing the way Hunk treated him so gentle but not like he was a doll, made of porcelain. Hunk just treated everyone gently.

But it drove Keith insane because he didn’t get it. He didn’t know how to be gentle. So he didn’t know how to give the gentleness back.

And Hunk deserved to be treated softly.

But every time Keith mimicked Hunk’s actions back to him, every time Keith tried, Hunk just sent him confused looks or pulled away, like Keith was doing it wrong and it was just uncomfortable for both of them.

Hunk dried off his hands and turned, catching Keith’s hand and they walked out together. Keith’s insides twisted. He still had the discomfort of being alive, of being  _ real _ , rolling a storm inside his head and now it was matched with his own anger and irritancy at himself for being so useless a partner to Hunk. The storm brewed, breaking wider and wider inside Keith’s mind, moving from tropical to full-on window shattering, house-breaking hurricane.

Hunk’s eyes glanced down at him, brows furrowed, confused. “You okay?”

“Yeah,” Keith choked out, because he was  _ not _ and in any other case, his instinct would be to curl up in the heat of Hunk’s chest, like a cat, like a Galra, but he didn’t want to  _ take _ . He was tired of taking from Hunk. “I’m fine.”

“You look upset,” Hunk said, flat, a fact, not a probing question. He knew Keith was upset.

Keith cursed himself, cursed Hunk for being the only other living person able to read him so well, and struggled to figure out when that happened, especially when Hunk was still a mystery to him.

“I’m not,” he said and he dropped Hunk’s hand as they stopped at his door. “Night.”

Hunk snagged his arm before he could bolt. “Keith!” He tugged Keith back. “What’s going on? You’ve looked upset this entire time. Did I do something?”

“No!” Keith said, quick, eyes wide. “Why would even think that?”

“I dunno, babe,” Hunk said, voice deadened. “Maybe because since I nearly got my arm cut off, you’ve been jumping around me like a scared rabbit and every time I seek you out or you come to me, you get all moody and weird and run off.”

Keith pulled his arm free from Hunk’s grip. “I’m  _ fine _ ,” he stressed. “I just- I don’t- I-” He let out an exasperated exhale and pushed his hair out of his eyes. “I’m fine,” he repeated because he didn’t know what else to say, what else to do. He just wanted to get away from Hunk.

“Are you still that  _ fucking _ upset about what happened?” Hunk snapped, voice all deep and rage, tone Keith was used to hearing directed at the enemy, at people that  _ weren’t _ him.

Keith’s eyes snapped open wide and his heart jumped into his throat. “I-”

“How many time do I have to tell you, it  _ wasn’t _ your fault? I chose to jump in front of you,” Hunk stressed. “I chose to do that, stop acting like it was a mistake or something you did, it  _ wasn’t _ .”

Rage boiled up into Keith’s chest, fast and reactive. “I’m not upset about that!”

“Then what the  _ fuck _ is going on?” Hunk said. “Do you not want to be me with me anymore? Is that it?”

“No!”

“Then why-”

“ _ Because I need you! _ ” Keith snarled, his skin prickling.

The confession weighed heavy in the air and he drew back, afraid. Fear was not a look he wore well, wasn’t a feeling he was used to. No, fear tended to be overrun by anger, anger at what was making him afraid, anger at himself for being afraid. Keith was reactive, like a nuclear bomb. If something frightened him, he moved.

And Hunk made him feel stagnate. In a good way, in a way Shiro never could, his father never could, but it was unusual.

Keith wasn’t used to feeling like that. Wasn’t used to needing people like that. Even after his father’s dead, Shiro was someone he relied upon but he could rationalize it away. He gave back to Shiro so he wouldn’t feel used and leave him. But if Shiro did leave, if he left, Keith could deal with it. If Shiro died, he could deal with it. As long as he knew why, as long as he had  _ proof _ , he could accept it.

So Shiro disappearing was another story but Hunk in any of the above terrified him. It terrified him how much he needed Hunk, his steady breaths, his soft smile and determined eyes.

It terrified him how much his heart dropped, how everything seemed to fail, how his chest tumbled over into itself, the entirety of him shutting down the moment he landed, feet away, and saw that sword arcing towards Hunk.

How it’d been his fault Hunk was in that position in the first place.

Guilt wracked him for hours after, when Hunk was recuperating, because he wanted comfort, he wanted Hunk to tell him it was okay, that Hunk didn’t blame him for it. He wanted to  _ know _ to his core that Hunk wasn’t going to leave him and that made him feel  _ awful _ . Because in the brunt of it all, Hunk was suffering and Keith was turning it into an issue about  _ him _ .

And the worst part was he knew that if he sought out the comfort he wanted, Hunk would give it to him without a thought, without even looking to himself to see if he really wanted to.

Hunk stepped back and looked down at the ground, then up to the ceiling, processing. Then he opened his door and gestured lightly inside with his head. Obediently, Keith followed. The door slid shut behind him, trapping them both in the room. Hunk settled on the edge of his bed, brushing his hand over his pants.

“So… you’ve been upset and weird and avoiding me for the last three weeks because you need me?” He pressed his hands together, firm, and touched the tip of his fingers to his mouth. “I’m gonna need you to explain a little more than that because I’m honestly confused as shit right now.”

Ragged, Keith exhaled, rubbing his temples. “I just- I’m not used to needing people.”

“Shiro,” Hunk said, gesturing widely.

“That’s different,” Keith snapped, uncomfortable. “I give back to Shiro. There’s an exchange. With you, I just- I feel- I-” He swallowed around his words. Hunk hadn’t noticed and Keith didn’t want him to notice because if he noticed, he might get upset. If he realized there was no equivalency, no give-and-take in their relationship, he might leave.

And Keith  _ needed _ him. Needed his hold, his soft kisses peppered up his neck and the warmth of his arms as he held Keith tight. Needed his strength, needed his reassurances, needed his impeccable patience.

He didn’t know how he’d gone so long without it all.

“You feel like you’re  _ not _ giving back.” Hunk’s words were flat, cut into Keith like a knife. “Have you considered that there’s nothing I really need you to give me?”

Keith narrowed his eyes. “Everyone needs something.” 

Hunk nodded slowly. “Alright, fine. You know what I need?” He smoothed out his sheets. “I need you to stop hiding from me when you’re having concerns about our relationship. I want you to come to me when you need me. I want you to stop acting like I don’t have a  _ voice _ .” His tone turned steeling, eyes snapping up to meet Keith. “If I want something from you, I’ll let you know, Keith. I’m not a fucking pushover.”

Shivers slid down Keith’s spine, cold and pooling. “You don’t-”

“Yeah, I do,” Hunk snapped. “Surprise, surprise, I actually  _ do _ ask for shit. I take your hand because I  _ want _ to hold your hand, because I know you’ll let me. I call for backup because I need backup. I ask you to go get Pidge when I need her technical expertise on something. I ask you for shit all the time. It’s not my fault if you don’t register any of that as what it is. You  _ give _ Keith.” He cocked his head to the side, hair brushing off from his face. “Just because I don’t need or want the same shit from you that you want from me, doesn’t mean I don’t ask for anything and it definitely doesn’t mean you don’t give back to me when I need it.”

He stood up, sharp, his body bristling annoyed. “What is  _ with _ everyone and thinking I’m a pushover? First my mom, then Lance, then  _ frigging  _ Allura! Now you!”

“I didn’t say you were! I just-” Keith wilted back, hands pressing through his hair. Not the time to get mad, not the time to shout. “I’m sorry. Okay? I didn’t notice.”

“That’s fine,” Hunk said. “But stop apologizing. I’m getting tired of you apologizing for stupid things. You’re allowed to have emotions, Keith. You’re allowed to be concerned about me.”

Keith dropped his hands to his face. Then to his sides, fists balled up. “You just don’t make it easy to be concerned! I can’t read you at all! How am I supposed to know if I’m being too much? You never say anything!”

“Because there’s nothing to say!” Hunk snapped. “And guess what? You’re not that easy to read either! You don’t tell me things! You’d rather bottle all this crap up then actually own up to it and then get angry when someone calls you on your shit!” His voice leveled out, still loud. “I’m your fucking boyfriend, Keith! You’re supposed to trust me.”

Keith swallowed thickly, backing up into the door. It didn’t open, didn’t drop him back on his ass, but he wished it would. At least then he could escape.

“You want to run away,” Hunk said, reading Keith’s mind, his stance. He stepped back, his eyes guarded, lowered, annoyed, upset.

All the emotions Keith didn’t want Hunk feeling.

He steeled himself up, tried to calm his beating his heart, the vicious tone souring on his tongue. He closed his eyes. “I  _ want _ you to feel the same way around me that I do when I’m around you. And I don’t feel like you do.”

His voice trembled. He wasn’t good at admitting his feelings, wasn’t like Lance who could just drape himself over the nearest person and whine about his emotions until he felt better. Hunk was right. He kept everything trapped inside because he didn’t know how to spill it without feeling like too much. 

Hunk sat back down. “Okay.” He pushed a hand through his hair. “That doesn’t help if I don’t know how you feel around me.”

Keith licked his lips. “Safe.”

Hunk snorted. “You think I don’t feel safe around my half-alien boyfriend? My half-alien boyfriend who skewered like ten monsters like it was nothing? Just because he was too focused on getting me to safety?”

The way he said it, like it was stupid Keith could ever think otherwise, had Keith feeling all sorts of ways. Good, because Hunk trusted him, believed he’d keep him safe. Bad, because the whole point of that happening was Keith’s fault.

Hunk stood back up and walked over, cupping Keith’s face, sheltering him against the door. “My half-alien boyfriend who once almost tried to take on an entire fleet of Galra ships just because he thought I was stuck on-board?”

Keith blinked.

Oh.

He’d forgotten about that.

“Babe, if you don’t think I feel safe around you, then why would I date you?” Hunk laughed. He brushed his lips over Keith’s cheek, not quite a kiss but close enough that Keith shivered. “Do you think I’m that kinda guy?”

“I just- I want you to come to me,” Keith muttered, leaning into Hunk’s chest. “When you’re scared.”

Hunk let out a short breath. “The last time I went to someone because of a nightmare, it was my mom and I elbowed her in the face and broke her nose, so figure me if I’m a little nervous about doing that to other people.” Keith choked on a laugh, not sure if he should or not, but Hunk’s small grin let him know it was all okay. “I’m scared sometimes but I know how to calm myself down and feel better.”

Pushing up to the tips of his toes so he could give Hunk a quick swipe across the cheek, Keith fell back, not sure how to respond to that. Hunk looked him over, his eyes laughing. Keith scowled.

“You know, just because I do it to you doesn’t mean you have to do it to me,” Hunk said. He tugged Keith forward.

Keith went with him, willingly. “I don’t know how else to-” He wiggled his fingers in the air, not sure how to explain it. Affection was lost on him. He’d lost it early in life and then Shiro was so vague, just short claps acoss the back or quick hugs.

Hunk seemed to react to touch better, lingering skin-to-skin contact, but always seemed too amused, too lost when Keith tried to do the same back.

Hunk released him, settling back on the edge of his bed. He pushed back his hair. “You just get this look on your face, like you’re about ready to go into a test you didn’t study for.”

Keith frowned.

_ What _ ?

Hunk looked him over. “You know what I want right now though?” Keith paused, then slowly shook his head. Hunk laid down, hands outstretched to Keith. “I want to cuddle.”

“Oh.” Cuddling. He could cuddle.

He crawled in beside Hunk and laid out on top of him, face rested just over Hunk’s shoulder blade. Hunk slung an arm around his waist and rubbed his thumb soft over Keith’s side. “See?” he murmured. “You give me what I want.”

Keith shivered. It felt too obvious now that Hunk had yelled it at him. Hunk  _ did  _ ask him for things. But those things seemed so general, things  _ anyone _ could give. But the longer he lingered on it, the more it hit him. Hunk  _ did _ seek him out when he needed comfort. More and more, he’d go searching for Keith, feeling homesick, missing his family, wanting to talk about his concerns about the war or the rest of the team.

But Keith was Keith. He wasn’t used to being the person people looked to for solace. In the back of his mind, he had just assumed that everyone else had been busy. Or that Hunk had just stumbled across him and decided he’d be okay to talk to.

The more he lingered on it, the more he realized how Hunk’s face, concerned and tense, would relax as soon as Keith came into view. Sometimes he’d breathe, “Oh, there you are. I was looking for you.”

And Keith brushed it aside.

No one looked for him.

He made Hunk feel safe. Feel warm. And when Hunk needed someone steady to layer his issues on, he came to Keith.

He took from Keith too.

“Feel better?” Hunk murmured, his hand moving under Keith’s shirt, so steady and hot against his skin.

Keith nodded. “Yeah.” He closed his eyes. “I do.” He bit his lip, wondering if he should, then relaxed, and said, “I’m sorry for avoiding you. I was worried you were going to-” He cut off and hid his face, embarrassed.

“You thought I’d break up with you?” Hunk rolled his eyes. “Ugh. You’re all idiots.”

Keith bristled, but the words weren’t intended to be mean, weren’t meant to be cruel, so he relaxed himself and kissed Hunk’s neck, right on the pulse point he pressed his fingers to some nights. “I got you hurt.”

“Yeah. And then beat the shit out of people trying to get me somewhere safe and nearly throttled Lance for trying to get you to be rational,” Hunk said, easy. “Even if I blamed you, which I  _ don’t _ , that pretty much proved how much I meant to you, so yeah. Why would I break up with someone who’d probably burn down the world if I asked?”

Embarrassed, Keith buried himself in Hunk’s chest, sinking into his heat like a cat. 

Agh.

Maybe the Galra were secretly giant cats like Pidge had insisted.

Would explain a lot. Like how he wedged himself to the nearest source of heat and how Hunk’s all encompassing hold felt like safety and relaxed him in seconds.

Hunk grinned up at him then leaned up and kissed the top of Keith’s head. “You think so loud, you know that?” His fingers, thick, spread under Keith’s jaw, tilting his head up, Hunk’s voice sliding quiet. “Can see it on your face.”

Keith struggled, shifting until he slid off Hunk’s chest and to his side, pressed between him and the wall. Hunk rolled over, boxing him in. Keith slung his arms around Hunk’s neck, cuddling in close. He felt exposed and no matter the person, being exposed was uncomfortable. He didn’t like being naked, no shame in his body, just how it looked compared to other men, and the way Hunk looked at him sometimes, warm and content, made him as such.

Bare and open.

But so goddamn good he couldn't stand it and it drove him crazy.

Hunk wrapped his arms around his waist, his hold steady and strong. “So what  _ did _ you need?” he murmured, voice full of sleep.

For all that he tried, Keith couldn’t remember. He had been feeling uncomfortable but Hunk’s presence, as calm as it was firm, had slid it away. Their argument, his feelings, emotions, brushed wide into the open, had cleared the aching tightness inside him and he could barely remember why he’d been feeling so uncomfortable in the first place, as though the source of it all was due to his inability to speak, his inability to just own up to how he felt. It should’ve annoyed him at how much easier it would’ve been to be up front. Normally, he would’ve berated himself for being so lackluster, not that he ever opened up to his emotions but that he knew better than to pretend and pretend and hide.

But he felt too calm to do anything of that, too at peace, too warm, too steady.

Keith flattened his hands against Hunk’s neck and drew close to the beckoning heat of his skin, sinking into his steady grasp, and closed his eyes. 

“You,” he said finally. He pressed up a little closer, kissing Hunk’s jaw, kissing lower against his pulse, the steady beat of Hunk’s heart under him. “Just needed you.”

**Author's Note:**

> First time participating in a ship challenge after a couple years of struggling to get around to them! I made it a personal challenge to try and work both prompts in! How'd I do? 
> 
> I feel like I haven't written voltron in years so this was a nice way to come back to it.
> 
> [Tumblr](http://happyk44.tumblr.com) || [Other Links](https://linktr.ee/hk44_art)


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